President of Commerce and Payments Bill Ready speaking at Google I/O 2021
Google unveiled a series of new shopping features at the Google I/O event last week, aimed at enhancing its offering in ecommerce.
Shopping Graph
Google’s new Shopping Graph is a real-time AI-enhanced dataset which will help shoppers find the most relevant listings for them.
Building on the Knowledge Graph, the Shopping Graph brings together information from websites, prices reviews and videos, as well as the product data Google receives from brands and retailers directly.
The Shopping Graph will be able to connect shoppers with over 24 billion listings from millions of merchants across the web, showing shoppers products available right now and helping people locate products from a broader range of sellers.
Search from screenshots
Screenshotting is a common way to keep note of something that’s caught your eye online. With this new feature, when you view a screenshot in Google Photos you’ll be able to search the screenshot with Lens, and see product results similar to those in the image.
Cart reminders
The cart reminder feature will be available in Chrome. It works locally on your device and will let you see your open carts and the products in them from the past couple of weeks, when you open a new tab. Google will also show promotions and discounts for your carts if you opt in to this feature.
Shoppers will be able to link their loyalty programs across various retailers to their Google accounts to show more purchasing options across Google.
This feature will be coming to Chrome soon.
Shopify
Google also announced it was expanding its partnership with Shopify, with a new, seamless integration that will let Shopify’s 1.7 million merchants feature their products across Google “in just a few clicks”. The collaboration will allow merchants to show their products across Google in Search, Shopping, YouTube, Images, Maps and so on.
Google last year eliminated commission fees for merchants and opened up free listings on Google Shopping, making it a more attractive marketplace for sellers. Its major competitor, Amazon, has commission fees averaging 15%.
With the Shopify expanded partnership and continuing innovative and useful features for ecommerce, Google is continuing to strengthen its position in this area.
Read more on Google's blog, or watch the I/O presentation here.
